Newswise — Recent news of a Tennessee school district’s controversial ban of Maus, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic memoir, broke on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, eliciting a huge global outcry. Backlash to the ban has caused an enormous increase in book sales, donations, and educational efforts to grapple with the lessons of Maus, which tells the story of Spiegelman’s father, a Holocaust survivor, and their relationship as he comes to terms with his father’s experience. On March 3, the Rutgers Bildner Center and the Littman Families Holocaust Resource Center (HRC) join this educational effort, presenting a free virtual workshop for middle and high school teachers on how to teach this vital, complex work of second-generation Holocaust literature.
Barbara Mann, Chana Kekst Professor of Jewish Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary, will lead the workshop. An expert on graphic novels that treat the Holocaust since Maus paved the way in the 1980s, Mann’s research underscores the value of using graphic novels and comics as a complement to other instructional tools in teaching the Holocaust. The workshop will be moderated by Colleen Tambuscio, pedagogical consultant to the HRC, award-winning teacher, and founder of the New Jersey Council of Holocaust Educators.
Free and open to middle and high school teachers, the virtual workshop will be held on March 3 at 4:30 p.m. It is sponsored by the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life and the Herbert and Leonard Littman Families Holocaust Resource Center at Rutgers University. Advance registration is required at BildnerCenter.Rutgers.edu.
The Herbert and Leonard Littman Families Holocaust Resource Center at the Rutgers Bildner Center teaches future generations about the Holocaust through teacher training. Free professional development programs for middle and high school teachers are available throughout the year. The Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life connects Rutgers University with the community through public lectures, symposia, Jewish communal initiatives, cultural events, and teacher training in Holocaust education.
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